Are we there yet? Queer sexual encounters, legal recognition and homonormativity

Abstract

In 2010, Portugal became the eighth country worldwide to approve same-sex civil marriage. Such legal change is a recent addition to the achievements that have put Portugal at the forefront of sexual citizenship rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Europe. This article investigates the political path of LGBT rights in this Southern European, majority Catholic, and post-dictatorship country, exploring the role of the Portuguese LGBT movement in contributing to change. This research highlights how the state is willing to compensate – via legal recognition – queer sexual encounters to the extent that they willingly embrace the dominant values of respectability and normalcy. In this respect, the approval of same-sex marriage offers the opportunity to discuss issues of agency, citizenship, recognition, and normativity. The paper begins by contextualizing sexual citizenship in democratic Portugal, providing an analytical account of the LGBT movement. In the second section, I suggest that a ‘politics of containment’ has characterized much of recent public discussion about sexual and reproductive rights, and I provide some examples. In the last section, I discuss the political and cultural implications of same-sex marriage law, with a particular focus on issues of normalization and homonationalism – that is how the state can actively contribute to the creation of the acceptable ‘normal gay’ with the compliance of LGBT activism.